ACT TO RELIEVE THE SCOTCH EPISCOPALIANS, ETC.
During this session, a bill was introduced in the lords for the relief of the Scottish Episcopalians, who had long been subject to heavy penalties, on the ground of disaffection to the revolution establishment. The bill was opposed by Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who ventured to intimate doubts whether bishops could exist in any Christian country not authorised by the state; but being assured by the bishop of St. David’s, that Christian bishops existed three hundred years before the alliance between church and state took place under the Emperor Constantine, his lordship expressed himself satisfied, and the bill passed. Encouraged by this concession to the Scotch church, the Unitarians applied for a repeal of the statutes affecting them; but their recent advocacy of revolutionary principles made their cause more hopeless than ever: their application was rejected.